


Rapture and Solace

by nastally



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Acceptance, Cats, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fear of Death, Gift Fic, HIV/AIDS, Introspection, Love, M/M, Poetry, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:47:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26621626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nastally/pseuds/nastally
Summary: Oh, but how he haslived. How he has laughed and cried and screamed his heart out for the entire world to hear.How soon he would do it all over again.
Relationships: Jim Hutton/Freddie Mercury
Comments: 26
Kudos: 43





	Rapture and Solace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [freddieofhearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freddieofhearts/gifts).



> This isn't my usual style or subject matter (although being the romance writer I am, it still came out romantic). 
> 
> I'm very intentionally mimicking another brilliant author's style here, and so this is, if anything, an homage.

\- - - 

Soothing, soft warmth. As beneath his fingers so in his soul. Curled up beside him she lies in loyal companionship. Day after day, even when— _especially_ when their passing means little. 

Soft like a summer breeze by the lake shore, the shimmering watery expanse he'll never now see, anymore. No— _choke down that call note of dark sobbing._ The future isn't written in stone, or if it is then to read it before its time might be what makes it so. 

Soft like a loving smile, then, and of those he has seen many, has he not? Lucky, lucky— he reminds himself. Always reminds himself, because to live through this without gratitude in his heart is unbearable. 

Anyway, he doesn't have the fire for rage now. 

Only sometimes, still. 

A flash. A moment. It burns so viciously, that indignant fury at the injustice of life, it could burn him up. But just as soon follows despair, sometimes tinged with remorse, sometimes self-pity, shame— all those weeping sores that never stop hurting, inside and out. 

And the weeping drowns the fire, but there's Jim to soak up the flood in his wordless, steady presence. Or if words, then spoken softly, tenderly, as to a child unable to wake from a night terror. _Try to sleep now, come— I'm here, I'm here…_

Such love, unwavering and unconditional. Selfless, for what can Freddie give in return? 

Not enough time left, to love the man he loves _enough_. The one regret which always remains. Then again, all the time in the world would not have sufficed for that. 

Delilah stretches, sinew and muscle and bone moving somewhere beneath the downy softness of her coat. Life under his fingertips, the vibration of her purr anchors him in time when time itself begins to feel abstract, the passing of it confusing and unnerving. Fractions of seconds. Grains of sand slipping through the hourglass.

Sleep, and wake, and try to eat, and drink, and sleep and wake again. Is the sun still rising or already setting now? Better to just close your eyes. _Perchance to dream._

Delilah rolls over and nips at his finger lightly. He smiles at her, gazing through his lashes. Lips horrid and dry. (Someone will come soon, surely? Someone will, no need to fuss.) 

But to have nine lives… 

How silly, such a thought— why, he has lived a dozen. He's risen from the ashes like a phoenix, time and again. A creature of his own creation. _The hero lives on,_ and if he burned up too fast then it was only to burn brighter. A comforting thought. He entertains it, sometimes, as one would a traveler passing through. It won't hold up to scrutiny, should it linger. 

The stagnation of a whirlwind life does funny things to the mind.

Every now and then a long-forgotten memory will bloom out of nowhere. 

That, too, happened. That, too, was lived and felt and real. It was and it always will have been, although none of it will matter, in the end. But it does the heart good to remember, nonetheless. Even the dreadful things, to know: that, too, did pass. _I lived through that._ Old shadows which have lost their power. Some of them not so, and yet they are less. Dwarfed into insignificance now that the unknowable, unfathomable looms like a constant companion. A presence watching over him, biding its time. One moment, he would spread his arms and welcome that embrace— _to stop being what one was in endlessly anxious hands_ — only to plead with it the next, full of mortal fear. 

Every angel is terrifying. 

An ear twitches, large cat eyes opening, peering up at him. Returning him to the moment; the chirping of the birds outside, the ticking of the clock on the nightstand. Muffled, familiar voices downstairs and traffic in the distance. This, too, will be a memory of a moment lived. For some time. 

He lifts his heavy hand to scratch her behind the ear and she lays her head down again, content.

Oh, but how he has _lived_. How he has laughed and cried and screamed his heart out for the entire world to hear. 

How soon he would do it all over again. 

In a mere heartbeat, given the chance. _Strange, not to go on wishing one’s wishes._ Although perhaps it is just. After all, he has been granted so many. His very surroundings, lacking for nothing. Beauty and sophistication for the eye to behold. But that is material; the immaterial is worth more, it is worth most, and the rest could crumble to dust. It wouldn't matter, so long as he has this. 

The footfall on the stairs, now nearing his door. Even that— the exact weight and rhythm of it recognisable before the door handle is pushed down, before he can lay eyes on that kind face— it brings solace. It brings joy. 

Perfect moments which still exist, in spite of and because. If anything remains, Freddie hopes it will be that which echoes into the vastness of time and space. Just love. 

And the door opens. 

\- - -

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired, among other things, [by a poem.](https://poetrysociety.org/features/readinginthedark/mark)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Rapture and Solace [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27259783) by [Aboutnothingness (Thesherlockholmes)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thesherlockholmes/pseuds/Aboutnothingness)




End file.
